


Imminent Doom and Other Worldly Concerns (Kastle Drabbles)

by KastleInTheSky



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Bars and Pubs, Dreams, F/M, First Dates, Five Lines, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, Mini AU's, One Shot Collection, Poetry, Prompt Fic, Relationship(s), Sexual Tension, Stitches, Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, Ugh, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-11 01:14:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7869757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KastleInTheSky/pseuds/KastleInTheSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My precious little Kastle drabbles based a series on various Tumblr prompts, which I will leave linked below as I use them :)</p><p>http://ghostling.tumblr.com/post/136629548151/four-word-prompts-please-come-with-me<br/>(if I'm supposed to credit this a certain way, let me know, cuz yknow I've only been doing this fanfic thing for a month thx)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Please, come with me.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, Internet Friends! My (user)name is KastleInTheSky! You may remember me from a harrowing Post-Season 2 Kastle series called "Kill Karen Page". You may not. Either way, I've decided to have a little fun like the a lot of the other lovely people of AO3 and star some separate prompt work for Kastle, while I still work on KKP. I'll pretty much be doing them in the order that they appear, but if the heavens open up and the world smiles upon me and one of you guys would like to request I write a specific prompt, feel free to comment! (Again, is that how this works? Totally clueless, party of 1.)  
> Oh, and I'll also be doing this one in chapters now because now I know I can do that :)
> 
> Enjoy!  
> -KITS

The lumbar region of Karen's spine was aching from the cold, wooden bar stool she sat upon. A dive-bar was a terrible place for a first date. Frank Castle always knew how to keep her on her toes, that was for sure. They were supposed to meet at 8:30, and as the clock drew closer and closer to 9, Karen became slightly offended by the notion that after all his chasing, all the little notes he left outside her bedroom window, Frank might be standing her up. She took out the crumbled scrap of newspaper on which Frank wrote the arrangements as she circled her finger around the brim of her second glass of whiskey. Thursday night, 8:30, O'Malley's Pub on 46th Street. Here she was, and still no Frank. She took a long swing of her drink, promising if he wasn't here after her third, she'd go home.

At a quarter passed 9, the bartender set down her third whiskey, and the countdown began. She hated to admit that she'd really been looking forward to this. Hell, she'd bought a new blouse just for the occasion! I mean, who does that? She felt foolish, and a little drunk. Suddenly, before her stood a white-aproned fry-cook from the back, sweating and rosy-cheeked.  
"Please, come with me," he said, as he turned around hurriedly and back in towards the kitchen. Karen looked around confused for a moment, but got up and followed as she was catcalled and whistled at by degenerate bar patrons the whole way. The cook was stopped on the far side of the steaming kitchen, wordlessly pointing Karen out the back door and into the side alley. Karen did as she was instructed, purse in one hand, alcohol in the other. What awaited her out in the alley almost made her spill her drink with laughter, while simultaneously making her blush uncontrollably. Frank was there, alright, in his blue jeans, a button-up shirt, jacket, no tie, and a big black eye. He held a make-shift bouquet of three red roses, two white daisies, and a mess of baby's breath. Beside him was a table set up with a plastic checkered tablecloth and chairs.  
"I'm sorry you had to wait," he said with the same deep, raspy voice that Karen could feel in the pit of her stomach. He lifted his right hand in the air and exposed a cuff link tied to the buttonholes with a rubber band. "I couldn't get these fucking things on."  
Karen giggled to herself and she approached, her kitten heels clacking on the pavement. "Y'know, I was beginning to think you weren't gonna show," she said coyly.  
Frank smiled with a breathy laugh. "Now, ma'am, I think you know that'd never be the case," he answered. He pulled out the chair closest to him and allowed Karen to have a seat. The dinner spread was comprised of buffalo wings, jalapeno poppers, sliced bread, and a cold pitcher of beer.  
"I hope you don't mind this," Frank asked. "Can't exactly get into a 5-star restaurant with a criminal record." The dim light of the flickering candle illuminated his dark eyes so that she could see the speckles of chocolate and amber beyond the bruises.  
"No," Karen smiled. "This... this is just right."


	2. Maybe I'm just crazy.

He watches her sleep most nights, and in the hour between 3 and 4, she dreams the deepest, her eyelids twitching basked in an orange glow.

And during those hours, when her twitching dreams take her far away, Frank sometimes wishes she'd stay there,

On the whimsical, spiritual plane of her most beautiful desires, where he is not, and where she is safe.

He watches her sleep, thinking "Maybe I'm just crazy", for trying to set fire to this field of endless wildflowers.

From the hours of 3 to 4 she dreams deeply, and imagines the union of flowers and smoke.


	3. I'm not even sorry PLUS a special request :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doing this one Freeform. This was a special request from Iammorgyg, enjoy! :)

Frank was loading his guns at the table, preparing for another night of tearing up a group of Czech thugs running a trafficking ring out of the Meatpacking District. Karen never spoke to him in the hours before he went hunting, as she called it. She never agreed with it, although it came with the territory with him. She accepted it, but that didn't mean she had to like. Karen was in the kitchen rearranging the plates in the cupboard for the fifth or sixth time tonight, anything to avoid him. Tonight, however, would be different. Frank had last night, in the heat of romance, as usual, discovered that beneath the finely ironed pencil skirt and polished professionalism of Karen Page, she had a dirty little secret of sorts. It was in the way he said her name, he thought. She would curl her toes underneath themselves, dispelling unbridled whimpers as he cooed at her. There was something in the way he spoke to her passionately, with his trachea rubbing against the back of his neck, deep, primal words that he pushed out of the furthest depth of his stomach. Tonight would different, Frank thought, because he had a secret weapon. 

As he watched every sinew of her long, smooth legs and arms pulsate with the rhythms of reaching and grabbing and rereaching, Frank slithered his hand into his coat pocket, picking out his trinket. He opened the dusty, brittle parts, tracing his fingers to the beginning. He pushed his trachea to the back of his neck, activated his stomach, and began.

"Come live with me and be my love,  
And we will all the pleasures prove,  
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,  
Woods, or steepy mountain yields,"

Karen dropped the plates she held, turning towards him puzzled, her toes curled beneath her. When she saw him with the book, she blushed a rosy hue that made Frank smirk in response.  
"Is this about last night?" she asked coyly with a sugary giggle. "You promised you wouldn't take advantage!"

He continued:  
"And we will sit upon the Rocks,  
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,  
By shallow Rivers to whose falls  
Melodious birds sing Madrigals."

Karen approached, tongue between her lips, walking tip-toed as Frank went on. She rubbed her hands along her now bump-ridden, sharp-haired arms.

"And I will make thee beds of Roses  
And a thousand fragrant posies,  
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle  
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;"

"No, deeper," Karen asked. "Like you're really angry." She was grinning feverishly. "And how about you just skip to the end."

Frank obliged:  
"The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing  
For thy delight each May-morning:  
If these delights thy mind may move,  
Then live with me, and be my love."

Karen was falling on top of Frank now, smacking the book onto the ground and straddling his lap.  
"That wasn't fair," she complained, cupping her hands around his jawline.  
Frank beamed up at her, looking her eager body up and down, taking her all in.  
"I'm not even sorry."


	4. You're always number one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen finds Frank's journal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A re-do because the first time it was actual trash.

Karen was an investigative journalist, yes, but she usually wasn't an off-the-clock snooper, really. That said, upon finding the black leather-bound book at the back of the utensil drawer one evening, a devious curiosity materialized within her that she could not shake for days and days to come. She thought about it every time she ate, sliding back the utensil tray to see if it was still there, but it only returned way after dinner time, conveniently after Karen had showered for the night. One particular evening around midnight, Frank was on a stake-out, and back came the overwhelming feeling, the voice calling her from the drawer, caustic in her brain. She had to give in. She snuck herself over, tip-toeing into the kitchen. There it was. Karen had compiled a list in her head of what purpose it could serve; she had hoped it wasn't "Hitlist", or "List of Prior Victims", though to her those were most likely. She pulled the silk string hanging from the bottom spine and opened where it suggested, somewhere in the middle. The page was dated from this morning, everything in military time.

0500, Karen has important article due. Will bring coffee back before she leaves.

Oh God, Karen thought, a reflex telling her to slam the book shut. She felt an incendiary wave of nerves flush over her, and she kept her mouth agape in earth-shattering surprise. This is a diary, she thought. All her farm-harvested manners told her to put it back where she found it and mind her own business. Then again, she wasn't on the farm.

Karen pulled the book back open, thumbing through for where she left off. She read today's log, yesterday's, a few days before that. She was the first and last thing he wrote about every morning, the first entry coming in before she woke up, the last as she was sleeping, while he was likely out hunting. 

In the morning, 0730 She seems stressed. Find out why.  
At night, 0110 Rooftop 55th and Highway, Nice View. Bring Karen.

The next day she awoke in the wee hours, as Frank was returning. She did everything right, a trick of sorts to see if her actions would garner a written response. She hummed to him as she gathered ice in a hand towel to put on his bruises. She dressed for the day in the living room rather than the bathroom like she would normally, put on a different perfume. When she came home from the Bulletin office that day, Frank had apparently left early for the night. Karen threw her purse down on the floor and clipped over to the utensil drawer, and the book was back. She scanned the room, just in case, and pulled it open at the string again. She covered her mouth with her hand, muting an embarrassed laugh, her cheeks blushing bright pink.

"GOT A BAD POKER FACE, MA'AM. LEAVE THE SNEAKING AROUND AT WORK.  
AND YES, YOU'RE ALWAYS NUMBER ONE. EVERY DAY."


	5. I can't do this (for La Laura)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen receives unexpected help from Frank during an important interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A request from my friend Laura, who introduced me to the beauty and wonder that is Kastle.

Karen sat, pooling sweat in places she didn't know could perform such a function. She twiddled her thumbs atop the black leather portfolio binder she'd bought to arrange her favorite of her own pieces. Which Ellison probably already had. Because she'd written them for him. Just in case, though. She untied the string that bound the folder shut, lifting the lid to be certain none of the articles had disappeared, or something. Something was different from last time she'd done this though. There was a scrap of another newspaper stuffed inside, which Karen carefully pulled out and uncrumpled. "YOU'LL DO GREAT. I'LL BE WITH YOU. - F". A sweet sentiment, albeit untrue. She rubbed her trembling hand across the hair near her temple, careful not to smudge her foundation. You can do this, Karen, she thought. You're a great writer. You're absolutely qualified to be Ellison's Junior Editor. The door to Ellison's office opened, and Ellison emerged smiling and laughing and patting the back of Jim from Sports, a great interview. I can't do this, she changed her mind. The folder slid a little in her sweaty palms, as Ellison dismissed Jim and turned to her, a cheeky grin on his face.  
"Relax, Karen," he asked. "Guy couldn't spell his way out of a paper bag. Come on in."

Karen leaped out of her chair. Too eagerly? She shook it off, hurrying herself into Ellison's dark, boxy corner office. Ellison sat himself down and spoke.  
"Listen, Karen. We have a great rapport, you know I'm a fan of your work, your drive, your passion for the story." He grabbed a notepad and slid his glasses down his face from his forehead. "These questions are for formality's sake, okay? It's just like you and me having a conversation." 

Karen felt her cellphone vibrate against the wool of her skirt. As Ellison cleared his throat and examined his list of questions, Karen stealthily pulled it out of her pocket to check. An incoming text was waiting for her from an unknown number. It read, "You look beautiful. Relax. Stop biting your cheeks." Karen squinted at it, releasing the thick slab of flesh her held in her teeth, and wearily looked out the window. She couldn't believe her eyes at first, assuming the nerves had completely consumed her and sent her spiraling into full-fledged insanity. She blinked, and blinked and blinked, but no, there he was. Across the street on an adjacent rooftop, smiling at her and holding a prepaid flip phone was Frank. He winked at her, sending her over an OK with his hand. Karen almost found herself exploding as a warm wave of appreciation fluttered over her. He was the reason she got into journalism, his story. Seeing him there, she felt a reignited passion felt had for discovering the truth, the integrity of the New York Bulletin. She straightened her spine, returning the smile and nodding over at Frank, before she returned to face Ellison.  
"You ready to start?" he asked.


	6. I won't let you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karen inadvertently discovers that today is a painful day in the world of Frank Castle.

As she often would, Karen was curled up cross-legged on the couch hovering over her laptop. She was searching, or rather confirming that no one else was searching for a trail to Frank Castle, and they hadn't. No articles in the news, no candid photos taken of a man who looks like a dead-ringer of that Punisher guy, remember him? As would often follow, she found herself re-consumed with the story that brought them together. She read the falsified articles fed to the Bulletin by the DA's office, reviewed crime scene photos she'd scanned to her desktop during the trial. Today she couldn't help herself, and she had read the obituaries. She'd never seen them before; they were curtly worded without much detail. She wasn't sure who'd written them, since Frank had been in the hospital himself, and evidently the Castles didn't have much extended family. Maria Elizabeth Castle, b. November 13th, 1984, loving wife, devoted mother, predeceased by father Michael Castle and mother Barbara Castle. Lisa Barbara Castle, born September 1st...

Karen's mouth fell open slightly, twinges of guilt and sympathy pulsing through her brain. That was today. September 1st, 2016 would have been Lisa Castle's twelfth birthday. Frank did seem to be in a particularly somber mood this morning, she recalled. He grunted at her every comment, no use of words. Karen's lip fell into a crooked frown. Birthdays weren't supposed to be like this, she thought. Not that every family has to deal with... this. Karen huffed loudly, dispersing the congestion that was building in her throat. She slammed the laptop closed, tossing it aside onto the sofa cushion, and in the same motion galloped towards the front door and out of the apartment. 

Frank returned sometime later, climbing in the window through the fire escape as he would, taking an extra moment to look up at the sky, at the waxing moon. He landed inside, boots heavy on the hardwood. His otherwise vacant expression became cold, defensive, as he pulled forth his bottom teeth, looking on at Karen sitting in a dining room chair, a cake with twelve candles on the table in front of her.  
"The hell is that?" he asked flatly.  
Karen smiled softly, repositioning herself in the chair. "It's a birthday cake," she answered.  
Frank shuffled as well, puffing his chest and scowling. "Ain't my birthday."  
"I know," she whispered.  
Frank scowled at the cake. It was frosted a light lavender, fondant pictures of green, purple, red, and pink dinosaurs atop it.  
"Rather not bother with this," he growled.  
"Well, I won't let you," Karen said, standing now and pacing towards him. "Frank, I know it's hard to think about. A lot of bad memories, a lot of pain." She sniffled a little, congestion returning in her throat. "But it's okay to think about the good things too. Today's special for you, Frank, for her. I think if she could see you now, she would want you to smile a little," she said as she curved her thumb under Frank's lower lip in the shape of a smile. "It's okay to remember the good days."

Karen dropped her hand and Frank released the tension from his mouth. Silent, he approached the table slowly, the dim flickering candles illuminating a sliver of the wall and an equal portion of his torso with a dancing yellow-orange glow. He reached his long, calloused finger out towards a cake, smearing off a little of the purple piping.  
"Purple was her favorite color," he said, a hint of a smile in his voice. "How'd you know that?"  
"I didn't," Karen answered, approaching behind him. She rested her hand, like silk, on his shoulder. "You said it used to be yours."


	7. Honestly, just stop it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank wanted to forget Karen after she last sees him on the rooftop. But he's doing like a really bad job of it.

Chunky wisps of her glazed blonde hair whipped back with the wind, while others kept themselves tucked beneath her bright red cowl scarf and its matching hat. The blinding snow piercing her exposed face left her nose and cheeks within only a few shades difference. Karen slid along the sidewalks, her rubber boots clunking and trudging through inches upon inches of filthy slush as she approached the front door of the corner diner. Soldier in the trenches in her own right, Frank thought with a glum smirk on his face. He was about 35 to 40 feet away from her, half a block of so, camouflaged under a hat and his black leather coat, blended right in with the bleak dark underbelly of Hell's Kitchen. This lady sure did have a thing for walking alone at night. He watched her yank at the metal lever on the front door with a gloved hand, taking a few steps inside before wiping bits of melting snow off her black peacoat. A graying man behind the counter pointed her to an open booth along the window, where she plopped down and shoved her outer garment off to the side. Frank found himself crossing the street, eyes on her as she was handed a menu, politely smiling, tucking her hair back behind her ears. 

She pulled out of a large tote bag a laptop computer and a notepad, a pencil tucked inside of the spiral wire rim. The old man behind the counter came back to take her order as she was typing something long out onto her computer, looking over at the notepad, piecing something together, Frank assumed. She feathered her bottom lip under the top row of teeth, back and forth, back and forth, until the pressure gave it a deep blushed pink color. She talked to herself while she typed. Frank could make out the words "Ponzi scheme", "embezzlement", "alleged homicide". Lady liked getting herself into some deep shit too, Frank thought. He knew that, though. Might have been the reason he was here. He stood hidden behind a snow-covered black Jeep, sleet hitting him in the ear, watching her. Seeing her here reminded him of the last time the two sat in a diner. He ambushed her. Might have been wrong of him. It was for her own good. He looked at her cheeks which had returned to their normal color in the warmth, moved down to the bitten lip, the nape of her pale neck exposed through her tucked hair. Normally he'd think this lady shouldn't be walking alone at night. Karen Page had nerve.

The old man brought over a cup of black coffee and bowl of, looked like some cream soup, set it down in front of Karen, and Karen thanked him kindly. She picked up her spoon, and as she hovered it over the bowl, Frank watched Karen take a deep sigh before dropping the spoon from her hand, splashing it into her dinner. She returned to her notepad, poking at the pencil until it fell out of the binding, and she wrote something quickly down. Without turning, Karen forced the notepad up to the window so that Frank could read.  
"Honestly, just stop it," it read. "I know you're there. I don't know what you want."  
Frank bit onto his own lip, not really embarrassed, but readying for confrontation. Karen pulled the pad back, and flipped the page over, starting a new note, this one softer.  
"Come inside. It's very cold."


	8. I believe in you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little mini AU where Frank is back in prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by the poem "A Visit to the Asylum" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

Frank liked to watch her brush her hair, in the morning as she dressed for work, at night before she fell asleep. In the dust and shadows of the apartment, juxtaposed to his own being, the flashes of yellow, some red, and gold felt like a godsend. He watched her toss it up in a knot when she was deep into her writing and when she'd throw it over one shoulder, licking her lips, concentrating on fixing him up, "Hold still." He'd never tell her, but in the early hours as the sun rose over the East River and the duller glow glimmered off the back of her head, he'd run his calloused fingers through the ends. It almost felt unkind to scrape it like that, but the softness, the color. It was impossible for even him to leave it be. 

 

That day, Frank sat across from her, a inch-thick slab of plexiglass separating the two of them. Her hair was up, pulled tightly so that only a thin layer was visible. This was his punishment, he assumed. He remembered the way the blue and red lights of the cop cars hit harshly against it; he'd seen her, about twenty feet away from him, away from the soupy pools of blood he'd spilled. It was windy and she'd cried into her hair that night. 

"This has to stop," she whispered through the telephone. "You promised this would stop, Frank." Yeah. Yeah he had.  _They all think that you're a monster._ Her words echoed in his brain.  _I know that you're not_. 

"I believed in you, Frank. I believe in you, I do, I still do." Her voice was trembling. Frank had his answers, though. The guards came up behind him, grabbing him by the shoulders and hoisting him up. He reached his cuffed hands up to the glass, delicately tracing it, anxious to touch her again. Frank had his answers, as there were very few things as undeniable, as celestially fated as these: he wouldn't change, he belonged in prison, and he loved that golden hair.

 


	9. Don't be an ass.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank and Karen discover that escaping Hell's Kitchen will never be as easy as it seems.

Karen almost didn't believe it, or rather, there was something deep within it that didn't trust. She usually found she would follow the soulful, luring calls of Frank Castle wherever, no matter the instruction, no matter the circumstance. Today, though, she was suspicious.  
"What do you mean, 'let's get out of here'?" she asked. "Where? For how long?"  
It was his demeanor that struck her curious; it was the way he was hopping all over the apartment, smiling and giggling, even though she knew he hadn't been sleeping, even though she could hear him at night growling at his own reflection, telling an imaginary enemy to "get the fuck outta my head". This positivity radiating out of Frank shouldn't have made her wary, but it did.  
"Who cares?" he asked in response. mouth taught in a painfully large smile. "Let's just... let's just go, Karen. Get the hell outta this shit dump, you and me. I'm... I'm tired of this..." The exasperation in his voice made her uneasy, but his rough hands glided over her palms, fingers lacing between hers, begging her. And so she packed.

Karen's spine bore into the leather car seat as the velocity with which Frank drove forced her backwards. His wide grid remained stitched eerily on his face as they flew up the West Side Highway, over the George Washington Bridge, through valleys of oil refineries in New Jersey. It took miles, about an hour of driving, before Karen spoke.  
"Where are we going Frank?" she asked, her voice demanding rationality.  
"Don't matter," he heaved, his voice heavy. "Just goin'." Karen couldn't help but notice that the farther they drove from Hell's Kitchen, the more Frank shifted his eyes to look at something in the upper right corner of his peripheral, and his grin lolled downward as he began to mutter to himself.  
"Get out," he commanded sternly.  
"What are you taking about, Frank?" Karen looked over at him, planting herself in the corner near her seatbelt.  
"You get the fuck outta here, you hear me?" he yelled again at the right corner.  
"Don't be an ass, Frank," Karen yelled. "What's going on?"  
Frank's breathing hastened, as if he was running this whole way. His lungs gurgled, and he growled upward, transfixed on the demon that followed him.  
"GET OUT!" he screamed.  
"Frank, pull over," Karen demanded.  
"No, no, we're gettin' the fuck outta there..." he said. "Gettin' the fuck away from... GO AWAY! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME."  
"FRANK, PULL OVER!" Karen lunged over at him, grabbing the wheel recklessly and forcing him in the shoulder of the highway. Through his body was stiff, practically dead-feeling, he allowed it. As they entered the shoulder lane, his foot lightly tapped the break until they came to a full halt, cars whipping by them.  
"Frank..." Karen began, huffing herself now from the adrenaline. "What... what the hell is going on?"

Frank sat there, hands glued to the wheel, eyes fixed forward. He was still breathing heavily, though he didn't respond.  
"Frank," Karen restarted. "If you don't tell me what the HELL has been going on with you these passed few days..."  
"Blacksmith..." Frank grumbled finally. Karen shifted in her seat, taken aback by the answer.  
"Wh... what about him?"  
Frank hung his head down sullenly, embarrassed. "Keep..." he gulped. "Keep seein' 'em... dreamin' about him... Can't stop thinkin' about him. I wake... I wake up at night, hearin' him... he's mockin' me, laughin' at me... I thought... maybe I had to get outta there... go away... maybe it'd... it'd..."  
Karen reached over and rubbed the back of his head, feeling the sweat in his hair. He closed his eyes as she did, tilting his head back and gritting his teeth, like her touched was aiding him somehow, warding it off.  
"C'mon," Karen whispered to him. "Let's go home."


	10. Who were you with?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> free-form five-line AU where Frank and Karen are strangers who meet in a cemetery. From Frank's POV

Cold today for Fall. Frost on the leaves, extra crunchy. Can't keep quiet with all these crunchy leaves, that's for sure. 

Maria made us dress up together on Halloween. Would probably take out everybody in this city close-range to be dressed up like a cowboy or a dinosaur. I start to feel my brows pull up to the corner, straighten up, take a deep breath. 

Wipe off the rime except what's on Lisa's. Lisa looks forward to the snow. Had myself a seat down beside 'em. Told 'em some stories I knew by heart, til it was gettin' dark.

Almost didn't notice her at first. Her hair was the same yellow like the trees, tryin' to blend in, yards away, whisperin' at the ground. Usually wouldn't give two shits,

But the hole in the my chest stayed as full as it could, like when I spoke to my family, when I looked over at her. Asked her on the way out, "who were you with?" She gave me her story and I gave her mine by heart.


	11. Please talk to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mini AU where Frank is found insane at the end of his trial and Karen is his court-appointed psychologist.

Karen Page was a professional. Top of her Ph. D. class at Columbia, the most highly sought-after criminal psychologist not only in Manhattan, but the entire state of New York. She could crack any convict you brought to her just with only the simplest of commands; "Tell me about yourself", a compassionate smile, and the whole world could crumble before her on the interrogation table.

So why all of a sudden were her teeth weighed down fused together like molten lava rock as the mass-murderer, "The Punisher" Frank Castle sat in front of her?

He had walked in as would any other, sullenly, head dipped low, forcefully lead into his seat by two armed prison guards, but there was something vaguely reminiscent of desperate humanity within him where there would have been a void in anyone else.

She had analyzed prisoner after prisoner, God-complex after God-complex after maternal abandonment, and yet among all the soulless eyes and psychosis that rotated through the chair in front of her day after day, Frank Castle stood out. His eyes were dark, but certainly full, and he stared from the other side of this cold metal table drumming a singular index finger down, timing her. Karen could barely hold his gaze.

A man who cries, and not even cries, Karen thought; a man who cannot hold himself back from succumbing to the corrosive, gaping cavity left from having his family blown away beofre him, that he cannot help but unleash deep gutter weeping as he testified... that man doesn't seem that crazy. Karen remembered standing in the back of that courtroom with everyone else in the borough Manhattan, many of whom didn't think so either, almost dreading an insanity verdict. She knew there wasn't anything vulnerary she could offer Frank Castle. She only fixed psychos.

"Ma'am?" he called to her. Her neck twitched with surprise, her eyes darting straight for him. His face was stoic, chiseled, but his eyes begged for something. 

"Please," he challenged. "Please talk to me."

Karen straitened her back and ironed out her blouse with her sweating palms, heading to his test, or perhaps his plee. Karen could only fix psychos; she couldn't mend things, ease pain. but she was a professional. She could try.

She cleared her throat, centered her mind on an adaptation of her usual leading question. 

"Tell me how I can help," and a compassionate smile.


	12. I can't trust you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank knew he shouldn't take for granted the fact that he was given a clean slate, but when Karen Page and her flower pot come calling, he can't risk it.

Frank would be lying, to insist he'd forgotten where Karen lived, which window guarded the living room of her loft. He'd be lying if he said that seeing her head-locked in front of a ticking bomb didn't allow him see that same vision in dreams from time to time, that he didn't care enough to make rounds outside her place every once in a while. He'd be lying if he said Karen Page wasn't worth completely neglecting that The Punisher was in his blood.

 

When he stood in front of her building that day, a pot of white roses adorning the now open window, hell yeah, Frank couldn't neglect the notion that something was wrong.

 

The tactic was second-nature, the careful tip-toeing to the entrance, the checking every corner for threats. While he snuck through the front door, up the staircases, through the hallways, there were the flashes of Lewis yanking Karen through that elevator, the barrage of bullets ringing through her last apartment. Frank felt the veins in his wrists pulsing like a goddam firefight, white hot with fury and fear alike.

 

Frank stopped next to her door, his back pressed tightly to the wall. His hand instinctually fell to the Glock on his hip, his breath held heavy, ready for  _some_ shit.

 

His free hand rose to knock softly on the door. 

"Karen?" he tried to whisper, but what came out was a low, grumbling roar.

 

He waited, leaning his ear in, hearing some clacking inching closer and closer until the door flung open and Frank in tune forced himself inside, gun at the ready.

 

He scanned the inside of the apartment, looking for debris, turned-over furniture, broken glass, anything, but there was nothing.

 

"Well," Frank heard the soft, kind voice of Karen calling out to him from the doorway before the door slammed shut. Frank turned quickly; there she was, a confused but sarcastic smirk painted on her face, an outfit pressed finely like she'd just returned from work, just like a regular day.

 

"I guess I can't be surprised," she smiled.

 

Frank scanned the room a last time, somehow still convinced the danger was imminent.

"What..." he whispered.

 

Karen began to pace towards him. Frank watched as she shrugged her shoulders, turned her milky palms up towards the ceiling, smiling at him. Perfectly fine.

"It's not like I could've called," she insisted. Karen raised one hand towards the island in her kitchen. Frank glanced over quickly to see an open bottle of wine and two stemless wine glasses perched atop the counter.

 

"Just wanted to offer a free man a drink," Karen giggled.

 

Frank almost felt foolish - he was trying to be embarrassed, but the fever of Karen in danger was hard to calm. Still, he found himself smiling in return, and he lowered the gun back into his side.

 

"That all?" he muttered. By time he looked back toward her, she had already begun flying to him, before finally reaching her arms out to embrace him. 

 

Frank would be lying if he said memory wasn't a funny thing, and just as swiftly as the memories of the last time Karen Page held him in her apartment arrived, the terrible ones faded away.

  
Frank lifted his arms to Karen's back, the silk of her blouse melting into his fingertips.

"Congratulations, Frank," Karen whispered, before she pulled back, a single hand finding its place against Franks cheek.

 

Frank took in the sight up her beaming at him, and the urge to do, of all things, laugh exploded from him.

 

"What?" Karen asked, still finding reason to laugh with him.

 

Frank back away from her and towards the window, turning away as he answered,

"You know, I can't trust you."

"What do you mean?" Karen replied.

 

Frank stopped in front of the flower he'd given her. The roses he'd put with it were undoubtedly long gone by now, but the flowers in the pot were healthy as ever. Frank wondered how many times she'd thought to change them in the time between.

 

He took the pot in hands, looking out the window one last time, just in case, before he closed it.

 

"Nothing," he whispered.


End file.
